Management Accounting

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Course Number:

ACCTING 2020

Course Name:

Management Accounting (Online)

Course Description:

Introduction to management accounting topics such as cost accounting, cost analysis, budgeting, and variance analysis. Focuses on both procedures and the drawing of inferences from the results for more effective and efficient managerial decision making.

NOTE: The information below is representative of the course and is subject to change. The specific details of the course will be available in the Desire2Learn course instance for the course in which a student registers.

Additional Information

Learning Outcomes

The overall goals in this course are to enable you to become comfortable with accounting information, to understand its meaning, and to be able to use it in the business world. The goals of Accounting 2020, Management Accounting, are for you to be able to do the following:

Understand how management accounting is used in businesses and organizations.

Explain and use basic cost terms and management accounting techniques.

Use job order costing and process costing to track the flow of costs to products.

Understand and account for overhead.

Understand and use activity-based costing.

Understand and use cost behavior, and perform cost-volume-profit analysis.

Use incremental analysis to make management decisions.

Use various methods to make pricing decisions.

Perform the entire budgeting process.

Prepare flexible budgets and use responsibility accounting.

Use standard costs and variance analysis.

Use capital budgeting techniques to make long-term capital investment decisions.

Unit Descriptions

Unit 1: Introduction to Management Accounting and Basic Techniques and Terms
In general, the study of accounting is crucial for business people because accounting is the language of business. To a large extent, most of the information that is used in the business world consists of accounting information, which is necessary for informed decision making. Accounting information directs the attention of decision makers to problems and opportunities, provides the input necessary to make business decisions concerning those problems and opportunities, and then provides feedback on the success or failure of those decisions.

Management accounting provides information to internal decision makers such as department heads, factory supervisors, sales managers, and so on. Unit 1will introduce you to management accounting and the basic cost accounting systems associated with this branch of accounting.

Unit 2: Activity-Based Costing and Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis
Due to changes in almost all manufacturing processes in recent years, traditional costing systems often do not provide the accurate information firms need to compete in the global economy. Activity-based costing generally solves the problem by providing information based on multiple cost allocation bases.

Cost-volume-profit analysis is very important in profit planning for all types of companies. It is a critical factor in such management decisions as setting selling prices, determining product mix, and maximizing use of production facilities.

Unit 3: Decision Making, Planning, and Control, Part 1
In Unit 3, you will use the information provided by management accounting for decision making and planning in depth. Lesson 7 covers a basic decision-making concept: incremental analysis. Incremental analysis means only considering those costs and revenues that will change under alternative future courses of action. Lesson 8 discusses establishing the price for goods and services sold externally (pricing) and internally (transfer pricing).Lesson 9 explains the budgeting process, which is crucial to all the routine decisions involved in planning and control.

An understanding of incremental analysis and pricing decisions, and an ability to plan, control, and make decisions through budgeting, are crucial for an effective businessperson.

Unit 4: More on Planning and Control
In Unit 4, you will learn more about how management accounting is used for management and control. In Unit 3, you learned about budgeting; in Unit 4, you will learn about budgetary control. (using budget reports to compare actual results with planned objectives). Other control tools discussed include responsibility accounting (cost centers, profit centers, and investment centers), standard costs, and variances.

Unit 4 concludes with coverage of capital budgeting, which is long-term planning for making and evaluating capital investments.

An understanding of these planning and control techniques is crucial for an effective businessperson.

Grading Information

Your work will be evaluated on the basis of how well you answer a variety of assessment formats, including multiple-choice questions, short-answer essays, brief case analyses, and problems. Final Grade Your final grade is based on total points accumulated from unit examinations and completed activities. Those factors will be assigned the following values:

*This course has proctored exams. If you do not have a proctor on file with the Distance Learning Center, you must submit a proctor nomination form at the time you register for this course. For proctor information visit our website.